DAVID FARR’S interpretation of King Lear leaves a lot to be desired; his directorial insight is just not there and this production lacks emotion and theatrical coherence.

It’s even difficult to pin down the period, as the characters wear medieval gowns, then there’s Edwardian finery, fairytale frocks and even tin hats from the First World War. It looks as if he wandered into the Royal Shakespeare Company’s wardrobe department and grabbed a pile of costumes.

The action takes place in a scaffolded industrial warehouse and, although I loved the grungy, dark sound effects and the crackling neon lights from lighting designer Jon Clark, they seem to belong to another production entirely.

The storm scene was a bit of a joke, too, as Lear and the Fool huddle on a raised platform the size of a domestic shower under a single shaft of water.

Cordelia (Samantha Young) looks the part as King Lear’s beautiful and beloved youngest daughter, but sadly, tenderness is nowhere to be seen.

Her elder sisters, Goneril and Regan (Kelly Hunter and Katy Stephens), however, are magnificent, and Kathryn Hunter, as the Fool, is a masterstroke of casting with her double-jointed antics and gamine humour.

Other saviours of this production include Darrell D’Silva, as the earthy Earl of Kent, and a fabulous unworldly performance of Edgar by Charles Aitken.

I, like many of the first-night audience, came to see Greg Hicks as Lear who really does, thankfully, make this production memorable.

Hicks proves his legendary status with his Shakespearean anger. filling the second half with a maelstrom of marvellous madness. But even Hicks suffered from under-direction and lacked anguish and compassion at the sight of his three dead daughters.

After last week’s fantastic production of Romeo and Juliet, I was expecting another dramatic landscape of theatrical brilliance and, instead, I felt as if I were back at school attending a long (more than three hours) reading of this most magnificent and daunting of Shakespeare’s tragedies.

Lear’s words say it all for me.

“Nothing comes from Nothing”.

■ Until Saturday, 7.15pm.

Tickets £12 to £45 Box office 08448-11-21-21

Helen Brown